Draft 1: Best Method for Preserving Cut Carnations

This topic submitted by Andrea Akin, Caitlin Craig, Alana Gerson ( akinal@muohio.edu,gersonad@muohio.edu,craigcm2@muohio.edu ) on 10/20/05. [Section: McCollum]

Natural Systems 1 Syllabus---Western Program---Miami University

Best Method for Preserving Cut Carnations
Introduction:
Have you ever wanted to prolong the life of cut flowers? Our research is a test to prove and disprove common methods in flower preservation. We talked to different florists, read articles, and even went from our own previous personal testing. After a flower is cut from itÕs original plant there is no more growth, which means that the flower will only look pretty in a vase on your kitchen table until it dies. We want to prove what method will help to prolong the life of a flower. For our example we have decided to only use carnations, they are the easiest flower to obtain and one of the most common cut flowers. The experiment will be conducted in different phases, each time narrowing the methods down. What matters most? The preservatives that you add to the water before you first put the flowers in? Do you cut the stems at an angle underwater or not? Or does simply changing the water daily make the difference? These are things we will be exploring during the next six weeks.
After researching, we know several different ways that may prolong and preserve the flower. First, we will cut the flowers at an angle (www.plantea.com) and add each of the preservatives suspected to prolong the life of the flower. We will test using bleach, lemon, mouthwash, aspirin, sprite, plain water, sugar, and preservatives. We also have detailed steps to follow while setting up our lab, (http://home.flash.net/~mindpath/ssis/cutflowr.htm). We believe that our flowers will last about 1-2 weeks. Our experiment will ask and answer the question of what helps to keep cut flowers fresh and how to do this.

Background Material:
A. Much research has been conducted on how to preserve cut flowers but on a more chemical, biological, and scientific level that we are not experimenting with. Our experiment deals with simple methods using common household products that ordinary people can benefit from.
We used many journal articles as references for other articles and as a source of experimental ideas and processes. We were not always able to find articles that specified in Carnations but we were able to use the article as a source of reference. We used:
1. The Annual Reviews, Longevity of Individual Flowers, which informed us about the longevity of different species of flowers on a larger scale by experimenting the longevity of flowers in different habitats around the world.
2. Extending the Vase Life of Roses (Rosa hybrida) with Different Preservatives, informed us of the actual chemical ingredients and they help preserve a flower, like silver nitrate, nitric acid, and sucrose. This article showed us why the methods that we are using in our experiment help preserve flowers.
3. www.plantea.com How to Preserve Fresh Cut FlowersÑNaturally informed us the best time to cut flowers is in the early morning and late afternoon, to always cut the stems on an angle, the contents of the florist preservative packets, and an all natural way to preserve cut flowers using household products.
4. www.thefrugallife.com Making Fresh Flowers Last Longer is an online article that provides ordinary peoples answers to this question. We found a lot of interesting ideas for our eight methods from this site because we wanted to test methods that ordinary people could conduct.
We also interviews two different florists.
5. Sarah at, GreeneÕs Flower Shoppe in Cincinnati, adviced us to use the preservative packets.
6. Natalie at, Oxford Flower Shop, adviced us not to add any products to the water except maybe a little of bleach, to change the water everyday, and to take off the underwater leaves. We thought her advice was very unique and we decided to use her technique as one of the eight methods.
7. Caring for cut flowers and preserving them. file:///c:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Ande/My%20Documents/SCHOOL%20WORK/wcp123/journal1.htm
8. Keeping cut flowers fresh longer. A consumer report. http://search.epnet.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&an=15540944
9. Provides information on perennial flowers and how to care for them. It gives detailed responses as to what safe to cut and what isnÕt.. http://search.epnet.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&an=2861680.
10. Explains the different methods of cutting the flowers, whether you should do it underwater and at what angle. This website was very helpful during our phase 2. http://search.epnet.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&an=9501303376
11. This article consists of a series of questions and answer from different florists and their own method of keeping flowers alive. There is a lot of information about the different preservatives and whatÕs helpful and harmful. http://search.epnet.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&an=9402287541.
12. http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20020521.html This article says to cut articles
at an angle underwater to prolong life.
13.http://www.hydrocentre.com.au/additives/ It suggests nutrients, vitamins,
cleansing, silica, foliar spraying, cell dividers, weight adders, harvest
activator, height controllers, rootzone accelerant, and feminishing
products.
14.http://www.agric.nsw.gov.au/reader/ornamentals/postharvest-care-cutflowers.htm
ServiceNSW It discusses temperature of the water, additives, sugar
solutions, and any other problems we may encounter along the way.
15.http://home.flash.net/~mindpath/ssis/cutflowr.htm This article goes step-by-step in preserving your flowers.
16. http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1034/j.1399-3054.2000.110202.x/full/?cookieSet=1 Anthocyanins are the major pigments within plants. Therefore, to help a flower live longer after being cut, GibberellinsÑlike sugars and lightÑcan be used for the initiation to copy an anthocyanin gene.

B. Our project on how to preserve Carnation flowers to last longer, has an enormous connection to human knowledge. This question is asked by every human many times in their life because so many people keep flowers inside but do not know how to keep Carnations fresh and longer lasting, until now. After, we conduct our experiement we will have the answers to what is the best method for a fresher longer lasting cut Carnation.

Research Design:
Our experiment is designed to narrow down eight different methods for longer lasting Carnations into one by three phases. Each phase will have two flowers per method (per cup), will be at a constant height, will be placed on the windowsill in PeabodyÕs kitchen, and there will be a constant amount of one cup of tap water. For each flower we will observe its color, bulb to stem angle, and diameter of flower. Based on these observations we will decide when a flower has died.
Phase one is designed to do the official narrowing down from eight methods to the best three methods. In this phase all the cup will have one cup of tap water and the flowers will be cut on an angle. The first cup consists of only one cup of tap water. The second cup consists of ¸ tbsp of lemon juice and 1/8 tsp of bleach. The third cup consists of ¹ tbsp of sugar and 1/8 tsp of bleach. The fourth cup consists of 1/8 tsp of bleach. The fifth cup consists of two aspirins. The sixth cup consists of store bought preservatives. The seventh cup consists of 1/3 cup of caffeine free sprite. And the eighth cup consists of ² tsp of scope mouthwash. Once we have the three best cups, we will take those three methods to phase two.
Phase two and three will be conducted at the same time and are both designed to further narrow down the three methods from phase one into the single best method. In phase two we will have two flowers per method (per cup) to experiment whether cutting the Carnations on an angle under water is better or out of water is better. In phase three we will experiment whether changing the water every day or not at all makes a difference. Here we will have two flowers per method but they will all be in separate cups.

Materials and Methods:
For our lab, we began with 8 plastic cups, different substances for the additives, and 16 flowers. In the first phase of the experiment we are using 8 different methods of flower preservation. All cups have 1 cup of water along with: only water, ¸ Tablespoon kroger lemon juice with 1/8 tablespoon Clorox bleach, ¹ Tablespoon pioneer sugar and 1/8 teaspoon Clorox bleach, 1/8 teaspoon Clorox bleach, 2 meijer aspirin tablets, florist preservatives, 1/3 cup caffeine free sprite, ² teaspoon scope mouthwash. For this phase every morning we are recording the width of the flower at the largest point, the angle of the flower compared to the stem, and the description of the coloring. For measuring the angle of the flower we measure the stem and the center of the bud of the flower. There are two flowers for each method. After the flowers in this phase die we will move on to the second phase.
In the second phase we will take the best three methods from the previous phase and then determine if cutting a stem diagonally under running tap water or not under water. This time we will have 6 cups, two for each method, with different cutting methods, and again there will be two flowers in each cup. After these flowers we will move to phase three.
Phase three is going to be a short phase because we are going to take the best method and see if changing the water daily and adding fresh preservatives makes a difference. For this phase we are hoping that taking care of the flowers versus neglecting them will also make a huge difference in the best method.
Below is the chart we are using to document each flower. Each flower, in each phase, has its own chart. In total we will have 30 tables of data when the experiment is said and done.

Sample Data Table for Each Flower

Day Width Angle Description
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14

We will start our lab after returning from Fall Break. This way, we will
all be here for the duration of the project. Each day we will measure the
width of the flower, the angle of the flower to the stem, and include a
description of the project. Once phase 1 is finished (in approximately 1-2
weeks), we will move on to phase 2 and 3. We will do these simultaneously
and do the same measurements daily. Finally we will be able to come to a
conclusion about the best ways to preserve cut flowers.

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